They Did the Mash

Considering the socioeconomic wars of the 21th century (not to mention the three hundreds years before, at least in this country), it's not terribly surprising to see so many films of recent years tackling the battles of the rich vs. the poor. Here's another one, probably with more innards than most.

Quick Plot: Iris, boyfriend Dodge, and pal Casper are a trio of petty thieves who have a safe, simple system of ripping off wealthy homes, When Casper's gambling addict dad is kidnapped by loan sharks, the team needs to up their stakes with a bigger score. Using Iris's catering gig, they decide to make a big play at the dinner party thrown by the Dawsons at their luxurious, secluded estate.

If you don't read the synopsis listed on Shudder for Monster Party, that might be your stopping point for this review. As you can guess, things go terribly wrong and our petty criminals are left battling for their lives, Ready Or Not-style. If you already know the reveal of the Dawsons' guest list, read on.

As you know from looking at any quick description of Monster Party, the Dawsons and their fancy guests are recovering serial killers, celebrating their anniversary of not murdering strangers. While Casper & Co.'s impending robbery is certainly about to give the addicts' some form of license to relapse, 20something sadist son Elliot doesn't even wait for an excuse: without much fanfare, he decides to brutally kill Dodge.

Casper and Iris are quickly put on defense, with the Dawson's teenage daughter Alexis crossing the class lines to join them. Meanwhile, team leader Milo (the regal perfection that is Lance Reddick) urges his fellow addicts to resist temptation and maintain their celibate non-homicidal ways. 

It gets pretty bloody pretty quickly.

Written and directed by Chris von Hoffmann, Monster Party earns a fair amount of points for originality but loses a few from me for its overall mean streak. It seems to want to mix horror with humor, but it doesn't fully know how to do both. It's unclear who we're supposed to root for, with little real development being given to the haves or have nots. 

Always a treasure, The Craft's Robin Tunney offers an extremely strong presence as the Dawson matriarch, but the script doesn't seem to find her nearly as interesting as the audience probably does (part of this might just be that no script anticipates just how good Robin Tunney is). I lost count of the guests and honestly couldn't remember whose face had already been smashed in and who was still looking to tear a poor teenager apart with his bare hands. 

Still, there's plenty here for a solid 90 minutes. It didn't fully suit my tastes, but von Hoffmann might be one to watch, especially if he gets the crueler, easy kill jokes out of his system.

High Points

This really is a sharp cast, both with veterans who know how to make the most out of something small and a surprisingly likable group of young actors, particularly Jessica Jones' Erin Moriarty (Alexis) and Virginia Gardner (Iris), who was also the best thing in the recent Halloween re-whatever

Low Points

On one hand, I don't necessarily need a deep backstory for an entire dinner party, but at the same time, there are quite a few unanswered questions that feel more frustratingly unanswered than ambiguously asked

Lessons Learned

Nice people don't live in Malibu

It is apparently exceedingly easy to cut someone's limbs off

Katanas have a quick learning curve

Rent/Bury/Buy

There is a freshness to Monster Party that I appreciate, even if the details don't all add up to a fully satisfying experience. It's streaming on Shudder and should be satisfying for most horror fans looking for something fairly fresh. 

Ladies & Gentlemen, The Face Blindness Movie

Faces In the Crowd required the work of four separate film studios.

Four separate studios who each have their own elaborately graphic designed logo.

Naturally, I expect greatness.

Quick Plot: Anna is your typical impossibly beautiful kindergarten teacher living with her handsome but dull boyfriend Bryce. After a regular girls' night out with a BFF that includes Lori Grimes (aka Sarah Wayne Callies, showing she can be way more fun than grating) sporting spectacularly weird red hair, Anna witnesses popular serial killer Tearjerk Jack (yes, it's a dumb name but that's just the beginning) finishing off his latest victim near a completely empty bridge. Just as she catches a glimpse of his mug, Anna tumbles off said empty bridge only to awaken in a hospital with face blindness.

There's some much longer medical term for it, but let's face it: this is the face blindness movie, just as Jack was the aging disease movie and Shame was the sex addiction movie.

We keep things real simple around here.

Face blindness, in case you didn't know, is an extremely rare condition in which the sufferer cannot remember faces once the people wearing them leave his or her sight of vision. This is exceptionally sad if you're Milla Jovovich and you cannot see just how impossibly beautiful a kindergarten teacher you are.

Also, it's incredibly inconvenient if you're a kindergarten teacher and can't tell your students apart.

It's even more inconvenient if you're the only witness to a brutal crime committed by a man man who just keeps a'killin'.

Enter the police force, represented here by two men because that's all police forces in big cities that might be New York if New York had a yellow 4 subway line and a dangerous amount of rollerbladers generally need. Detective Sam is played by Julian McMahon with a vital goatee and even more vital inconsistent not-British accent. The only other person of note in the entire police department is a psychologist who keeps appearing at chance moments and is, you know, totally not supposed to be the only character you suspect of actually being the real killer.

Totally.

Did I mention that, for really no reason, there are A LOT of rollerbladers in this film?

Written and directed by Julien Magnat, Faces In the Crowd is supremely entertaining. As proven by her enthusiasm in the Resident Evil canon, Milla Jovovich is always the actress you should cast when you need some magnetism in a lousy script. She seems to be both trying to give a genuine performance but also conveying the understanding that yes, this is indeed a dreadful script. 

Lessons Learned

Contrary to popular opinion, no, it does not get tiring being a slut

Faces are the barcode of the human race

Everyone knows everyone on Koel Island

Never wait for backup in Not-New York City, unless you have at least a half hour to ward off a killer and die of a gunshot wound

Kindergarten teachers in Not-New York City prefer to use professional headshots for their Facebook profile pictures

The Winning Line
SPOILERs follow, so beware:

"I love you!"

"No, you don't. You'll find someone else." (cough cough, die)

Most passive aggressive final words ever? Even if they ARE delivered by a man who just made himself a makeshift goatee out of blood to break through his sorta girlfriend's face blindness (I'm so not kidding), that conversation is hilarious

Rent/Bury/Buy

Whew boy. Faces In the Crowd is not incompetent as a film. Jovovovich takes things seriously while still demonstrating a sense of humor in her performance, and the sleek urban (but seriously, not) landscape looks good on camera. Of course, it's everything from the adorably PG-rated hobo (they even call him a hobo!) to the soft focus sex scene that makes Faces In the Crowd such an unintentionally entertaining film. The script seems to be written by a middle school student who just finished reading her first mystery novel, and folks, that's not necessarily a bad thing.